Sweeping or vacuuming high-traffic areas, such as the dining room and kitchen, daily is ideal for keeping hardwood floors dust-free. For less traveled areas, cleaning once a month or once a season should suffice. It's important to note that if you're not sure if your floors are sealed or not, it's best to exercise caution and follow the instructions for unsealed floors. Steam cleaners can make your floors clean and shiny, but moisture added to the floors can cause problems.
To help preserve heavily trafficked floors, place highly absorbent floor mats at points of entry to the area. If the hardwood floors in a busy area, such as a hallway, are being abused a lot, consider buying a narrow running rug that you can place in the hallway. When vacuuming hardwood floors, use a vacuum with smooth (clean) rubber wheels and turn off the brush or mixer bar. Hardwood floors with moderate traffic should be cleaned at least once a week, preferably two or three times to help maintain their quality.
Polishing them can add a little more shine and make them look like new. For wood floors to be stable, they must be kept in as uniform an environment as possible in terms of humidity and temperature.
